4/18/2012-It Ain't Zagat

Bob Englehart

I don't know if you travel much or have lived in places other than the capital region, but we in Connecticut have two of the most splendid government buildings in all of America. I'm talking about the state Capitol and Hartford's City Hall.Trying to cram city hall into a vertical format is impossible, so I had to alter it a bit and draw what amounts to a caricature of the building. It captures the intricate architecture, but it's much wider than I've pictured it. There are a lot of taxpayers out there who think government workers should be in the cheapest of buildings. I'm not one of them. When the DOT building on the Berlin Turnpike was built, people called it the Taj Mahal. When the Legislative Office Building was built next to the capitol, people decried its ostentatiousness. Not me. I think a government building should reflect the power and grandeur of democracy itself. Those buildings make great symbols. When I read about the health department's rating the cleanliness of restaurants, I knew one day I'd be using it in a cartoon and here it is.